One Unread Message
by zealousrebelmaker
Summary: 'Ayano, I'm sorry.' It begins with this, that one unread message that Ayano received from her provider. [ayano/info-chan, canon divergence due to constant game development, yandere simulator]
1. Aishi-san

HEADCANON HEAVY | ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

 **ONE UNREAD MESSAGE**

一つ: Aishi-san  
(1: Aishi-san)

As much as Akademi High School prides itself on being a top drawer school where it offers more support to students than the average Japanese high school, there are times when a member of the faculty must put her foot down on a certain hopeless student.

Midori Gurin's infamous stupidity was either a blessing or a curse, because while some intellectual students ended up being extremely ticked off by her lack of common sense, others found that while she could come off as quite annoying, she was in fact quite a funny person. Saki Miyu laughed about the day's newest fact about the odd green-haired soul, chatting with her girls as she side-eyed Midori at a spot on the rooftop, gazing out while wondering about god-knows-what.

"Nana-sensei said that Midori-chan asked her how to do simple addition because she completely _forgot_ ," Saki giggled, but it wasn't in an ill-natured manner.

"It's not surprising- people _can_ forget, Miyu-senpai..." Ayano Aishi laughed nervously, looking up from her phone. "I think I remember someone forgetting something simple throughout this year too..."

Yui Rio raised her hand, focusing her steely and determined red eyes right at Ayano. "I remember. Does anyone know Budo Masuta from Class 3-2?"

" _Him?_ " Kokona Haruka gasped, fidgeting with her nails. "Isn't he the guy who tried to chop the school's benches in a display of his martial arts skills?!"

"Apparently, he watched too much anime at night and when he went to class-" Yui said, but Kokona interrupted her, reaching out a hand to cling onto her kohai's arm.

"Hey, I'm supposed to know- I'm in his class!"

"No, no, here's the thing- he didn't go to your class, or his class, or whatever, he went to-"

According to her information - and her information is never wrong - Ayano Aishi never really liked social settings.

Info-chan read somewhere online that love is never peaceful, because love is a neverending fight. It's probably the very reason why she decided not to fall in love with silly people throughout her school life, and it definitely would carry over to her working life when she becomes a young lady in a dreary office. Her latest client, Aishi-san, is probably her most interesting client yet - most of her clients had been (and still are) perverted old men wanting snapshots of high school girls' underwear.

She finds herself laughing slightly at the prospect of Aishi-san crouching down below her schoolmates' skirts to desperately take pictures of their underwear though.

Info-chan could say that Aishi-san's a pretty girl, prettier compared to herself, in fact. Aishi-san isn't exactly generic, but she purposely makes herself rather plain and unassuming in contrast to most of the student body. It made her somewhat self-conscious looking at Aishi-san for a duration, because Info-chan found herself tugging at her cropped red hair and the arms of her glasses for a moment.

Aishi-san had that...traditional type of look, the type where she could stop people dead in their tracks if she just bothered to gussy up a bit. It takes time for people to ultimately see that Aishi-san was pretty, that's the type of person Aishi-san looked like.

Then, her phone vibrated.

Speaking of Aishi-san, she was checking on her data.

Tsk.

The funniest look came upon Aishi-san's face upon seeing the automated message, and Info-chan almost wanted to laugh again. She could almost remember what she had said: _'Trying to look up my information? Don't bother. There is nothing that you need to know about me. You're a client and I'm a provider. That's all we need to know about each other.'_

Aishi-san gave a frustrated groan and tucked her phone into her skirt pocket.

Sometimes, Info-chan thought to herself, she wondered how Aishi-san came to escape her attention throughout their early years in Akademi. Probably because of Aishi-san's recent interest in Taro Yamada, the emotionless girl slowly broke out and garnered her attention - fortunately, the attention of others weren't roused just yet.

That's why Ayano Aishi was the perfect person for her to choose as a client - she's not too showy, she's not too unnoticed, she's just perfectly, generically normal to the public eye that if she told Aishi-san to possibly ( _without_ a _'pretty please with a cherry on top'_ ) swat Osana Najimi out of the picture, no one would suspect anything if Aishi-san played her cards right.

Najimi _needs_ to get what's coming to her.

But Info-chan knows that she can't settle her own grudges.

* * *

 **A/N:** Reposted from my account with the same name on AO3.

Many thanks to Yanderedev, for creating such a wonderful game that has a special place in my heart. Your effort in releasing the updates are very meaningful.

Most probably, this fanfiction will be updated extremely slowly due to the many loose plot holes in the canon storyline of Yandere Simulator. When the time arises where official names will be revealed, I will edit the chapters accordingly, or if there are huge plot twists, the storyline of the fanfiction might change.


	2. Cardboard

二つ: Cardboard  
(2: Cardboard)

Nothing much really happens in Buraza Town. Really. Nothing.

It's a town so predictable that people could yawn upon passing through the streets. Info-chan looked at her phone: 6:10 PM.

The first term of the school year had just started, but it felt like it was about to come to an end for the red-haired high school girl. Funnily enough, the very mention of the year 2016, which was the current year at that time, made her feel a little old - the future is running so fast that she has to catch up with it, or surpass it.

She looked down at her tiny cardboard food box full of eight balls of _takoyaki_ and poked a toothpick into one.

The _takoyaki_ stand owner who hums while adding seaweed flakes to her latest order pays no attention to Info-chan, mainly because there were four other customers sitting at her stand. Info-chan could hear some of them ordering for chicken and cheese or a few pieces of extra squid, but she merely kept eating, wondering if she should buy more food to make up her dinner for the night.

 _Nothing much really happens in Buraza Town_ , she thought to herself again. But Buraza Town is so small that if anything interesting ever happens, everyone would know.

One boy from the neighbouring school got up from his seat to leave and a girl from Akademi replaced it. It surprised Info-chan - granted, it wasn't surprising that Aishi-san was still out and about at night after seeing Yamada-senpai off (or more like _stalking him to see if he got home all safe and sound_ ), but it was surprising that she'd stop at the very same takoyaki stand for some food. There are three stands, and Aishi-san had to take this one.

"Excuse me," Aishi-san said, and Info-chan found that her voice was the very epitome of politeness. "Can I have the chicken and cheese set please? The set where there's eight balls of _takoyaki_?"

The kindly proprietor laughed and nodded. "Coming up for you, dear. It's 400 yen."

"Thank you," Aishi-san smiled, and like any ordinary high school girl, she took her phone from her pocket and started looking through her social media feed.

It was a fairly silent affair, with the sky getting darker and the two assumed strangers quietly eating and waiting, but Info-chan knows that they're hardly strangers, not when her more notorious persona was involved. Aishi-san doesn't even know how she looks like or what her real name was, so Info-chan found it hilariously ironic that the client is sitting right beside the unknown provider without even knowing it. The sounds of food being fried and the sights of people hanging around the town fresh out of work or school served to make the atmosphere rather comforting, until Aishi-san got her order.

"Oh-!" Aishi-san gasped, then smiled and sat back down with her food. "Are you from Akademi too? I'm sure the food's great here, isn't it?"

Somehow, the bespectacled student laughed. "I am! The _takoyaki_ here's good, but I prefer ordering the original flavour."

Aishi-san muttered a word of thanks for the food before eating, and just like any ordinary high school girl, she indulged in the flavor of the food, thoroughly surprised at the taste of it. The dark-haired girl laughed after she swallowed her first bite - Info-chan somehow found the whole exchange very disconcerting, especially when their first exchange with her as Info-chan came across as completely unpleasant. Aishi-san's mouth moved to talk, but her mind recalled certain phrases during their first exchange, drowning out every possible thing that the raven-haired girl was saying.

 _'You're disgusting.'_ She remembered Aishi-san saying that.

 _'You're a stalker.'_ She remembered herself saying that, as _Info-chan._

But now, she wasn't Info-chan. She's not the sole student of a lonely club, nor a student whose actions are exclusively protected by Akademi High School's headmaster. She's not the infamous perverted know-it-all outside school grounds, because at the moment, she was-

"-Ayano Aishi."

"H-Huh?"

Aishi-san gave the bespectacled girl her best smile. "I'm Ayano Aishi," she repeated. "From class 2-1. What's yours?"

"A-Ah..." Info-chan managed, looking down at her food. It wasn't that she was bashful, it was that she really didn't know what to say. She very well couldn't give her full name, or which class she was in, but Aishi-san immediately thought that she was just extremely shy.

"Sorry," Aishi-san laughed nervously. "Did I scare you? It was a bit forward of me, wasn't it?"

"I..."

 _Plip._

A drop of rain.

That singular drop of rain that made its not-so-gentle landing on Info-chan's nose heralded even more drops, followed by a full drizzle. There was no roof over the _takoyaki_ stand for the customers, so the rest instantly ran for cover in the neighbouring shops and konbini. Info-chan fumbled with her bag for a portable umbrella that she regularly brought along with her to shield herself and her food, but she spotted Aishi-san being frantic herself, along with the _takoyaki_ stand owner.

"My stand!" the frantic middle-aged lady cried out.

The next thing Info-chan saw was Aishi-san helping the lady push her _takoyaki_ cart into a _konbini_ , and to her very own surprise, the redhead found herself trying to shield all three of them from the rain. The heavy stand had to be pushed carefully into the _konbini_ , surprising the cashier greatly when she saw a _takoyaki_ seller with two high school girls burst in, fairly drenched from the rain.

"Wait, excuse me-!" the flustered cashier began, but Info-chan closed up her drenched umbrella and tried to catch her breath.

"Just for today," Info-chan gasped. "Please. We're sorry for intruding, but please, just for today."

* * *

"I don't know how to thank you two girls," the middle-aged woman smiled, laughing. "It's very nice of the both of you to help me!"

Info-chan ended up looking forlornly at her unfinished yet soggy _takoyaki_ , sitting at a table with Aishi-san as the middle-aged woman proceeded to try and advertise possible business ventures with her snacks to the cashier and the _konbini_ branch's manager. She could feel Aishi-san smile at her - please don't smile at me, she thought - with a rather relaxed air as the night rain drizzled about around Buraza Town outside.

"The cardboard's a bit wet," Aishi-san commented on Info-chan's box of food. "Luckily, I finished mine before it rained. What we just did was pretty strange, huh?"

"I've never pushed a cart before, if that's what you mean," the bespectacled girl looked away, tugging at her short red hair.

"That makes the two of us," the raven-haired girl smiled. "Are you going to wait for the rain to let up before going?"

"No," Info-chan said, quickly grabbing her umbrella as she bowed politely to the elder people in the _konbini_. "I need to get home early."

* * *

 _"Ayano darling, how's your first day of high school?"_

Ayano's mother chimed brightly through the phone - it must be morning somewhere in America. The pajama-clad girl was just about to go to sleep before her mother decided to make the long-distance call, so it was so peculiar to hear the exaggerated voice of her mother again.

"I pushed a _takoyaki_ cart," said Ayano lamely.

 _"You what?"_ came her mother's shocked voice. _"Oh, Ayano! Why were you pushing a_ takoyaki _cart?"_

"It's a long story," she sighed, burying her face in her pillow. "I'm about to sleep, mama. Tomorrow's-"

 _"-another day of school, I know. I know all about it, Ayano dear! Good night then! Papa and I love you!"_

It's another day of school, yes. But there's that Osana Najimi girl to deal with, and Ayano's racking her brains for something, anything. That Info-chan did give her valuable information, and she believes that she can do it all on her own without the damned panty shots.

 _Ugh._

She'll think about it in the morning.

* * *

 **A/N:** I have a mighty need to learn Info-chan's canon name. I hope it's a nice one.


	3. Currency

三つ: Currency  
(3: Currency)

A message notification beeped and echoed throughout the dark bedroom, and a hand emerged from the covers of a bed to tap the phone's screen.

Tired groans followed – not that it was surprising in any way, because it was so early in the morning that Info-chan's alarm clock didn't even go off yet. It's only a Tuesday – well, the first Tuesday of the first school week, but she was so drowsy that she almost wanted to sleep in. Sometimes, she thought to herself, she felt like ending this entire Info-chan charade, really. _You've seen enough of the world already. School's boring, university would be even more boring, and after university, work will be just like school and university, and retirement is just a meager compensation of spare time after 40 or 50 years of work._

But the red-haired girl grabbed her phone and swiped the screen only to see the name _'Aishi-san'_ hovering above the thread.

 _'Do you seriously want me to take panty shots if I need your help?'_

Groan.

Her slow thumbs keyed in a reply while she herself was still very addled with sleep. _'Of course. I accept nothing less. I have other clients too, you see. They're very picky.'_

It took Aishi-san a few seconds to reply back. _'How do I even do it?! It's just as the rumours said_ _–_ _you're disgustingly perverted.'_

 _'Well, it's up to you to take those shots. I suggest you join the Photography Club to improve your aim. Exact center of the shot, okay?'_

 _'If I don't give you the shots?'_ came Aishi-san's question.

 _'No information.'_

There's nothing else from Aishi-san right after that, thank god. Info-chan doesn't get out of bed right after, having chosen to bask in the comfort of her own covers, but she does eye a cassette tape from across the room, sitting obediently right next to her laptop computer. It's only one tape – she found it lying around on the school grounds a day ago, and when she played it, she didn't know what to make of it.

For short, it didn't make sense. It only spouted something about some guy wanting to interview students at a local high school, presumably Akademi. Info-chan couldn't get enough information from one tape alone, but she kept it.

She got out of bed and took the tape, sat back down on her bed and looked at it.

What a sad, pathetic man.

Remorse – it's something rather alien to her, coming from someone who had repeatedly manipulated and exploited other people for her own ends. She looked at the tape in her pale hands, thinking over and over again about the very existence of the person that was Info-chan. She gave birth to Info-chan, a conniving, intelligent, perverted, self-sufficient girl who has the information everybody needs in just a tap of their phones...

...and here she is, a normal girl, once the entire Info-chan persona disappears.

A double life is sometimes painful to lead, but she feels that she barely exists anymore, mainly because Info-chan is a lot more interesting, a lot more infamous, a lot more legendary than silly old her. She's nothing compared to her other self, and it sometimes feels sad, because the more Info-chan emerges, the more she has to kill her true self to bring Info-chan to life.

Two people can't live at the same time in this unfortunate situation. That'll make one a bit mentally disturbed.

She can't bear it.

But Aishi-san can.

Aishi-san isn't normal, no matter how she pretends to be. Aishi-san can change how she behaves and stay that way for days, weeks, months, if that's what it takes. Aishi-san can very well get along with Info-chan, but Aishi-san can never get along with the real her.

Putting on and discarding the persona of Info-chan is as easy as wearing her glasses and taking them off, but then again…

...it was also as painful as shedding her own skin to don another one.

* * *

"Oh, it's you! Good morning!" Aishi-san laughed, smiling over at the red-haired girl.

The two girls were parking their bicycles right at the entrance of their school, and at the raven-haired girl's sudden forwardness, Info-chan flinched a bit. The bespectacled girl's hands, if anything, gripped at her bicycle handles tightly, reflecting her bundle of nerves. It's a wonder that Aishi-san still looked so chipper despite waking up very early in the morning, but then again, Aishi-san's full of wonders to begin with.

"H-Hello, A-Aishi-san," she ended up mumbling, taking her schoolbag as calmly as she could.

"Hey, you don't have to be so formal with me," Aishi-san offered, keeping her friendly smile. Info-chan didn't dare to try and see whether it was genuine or not, because no matter what the result was, it would develop a very irrational fear inside her. _A fear of what, exactly?_ she thought to herself. Aishi-san's a bit unhinged in the head, she knows that, so what's there to be afraid of?

"Even so..." Info-chan managed. "...I-I'd like to be respectful."

Aishi-san gets her own schoolbag and beckons Info-chan to follow her into Akademi's entrance with a tilt of her head. "We're in the same year, aren't we? You look like you're in my year - oh, that means you don't really have to be so formal, then!"

Info-chan's legs keep up with Aishi-san's pace, much to the redhead's shock. "Formal?"

"Call me Ayano-chan," came the simple, cheery reply.

 _Ayano-chan._

The very notion of her calling Aishi-san _that_ made Info-chan want to call her that and vomit, and she didn't know why.

The ponytailed girl almost reaches her shoe locker before suddenly stopping, and much to Info-chan's horror and surprise, Aishi-san twitches horribly. In all his glory, Yamada-senpai walks right past Aishi-san, not even noticing the girl that's behaving extremely strangely upon being cut off from her path. Aishi-san's fixation on Taro Yamada wasn't just dangerous - it was horrifying, the things that he does to her without him knowing. She idolizes him like a god, like air itself - without him, Aishi-san would rather be dead. Aishi-san _can't breathe_ without him, and _Yamada-senpai doesn't know._

"...Aishi-san," Info-chan said, shaking the girl's shoulder. _"Aishi-san."_

And then, something else happened.

A flash of orange was what Aishi-san and Info-chan saw next, and glaringly polka-dotted stockings decorated the legs that walked towards Yamada-senpai's rather feeble stature. Osana Najimi changed her shoes, then started talking to Yamada-senpai - on one time, she playfully slapped the back of his head, causing Aishi-san to lunge forward slightly out of instinct had it not been for Info-chan's hand on her shoulder restraining her.

"Aishi-san," the redhead said again, this time in a firmer tone.

 _Firm._

 _Ha._

What a joke. She's too _unsettled_ to be _firm._

Thankfully, Aishi-san looked at the bespectacled girl, looking as if she'd never even acted the way she did earlier. She clasped a hand to her mouth, then distanced herself away from Info-chan a while before bowing in apology. "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me! I won't do it again!"

* * *

Ayano glared at her phone as if it was something to be loathed entirely.

It's lunch break and she's staring at her phone wordlessly, completely mystified over the fact that the day would come when she would start having pictures of schoolgirls' panties saved in her phone. It's something a guy would do - but this is Info-chan's so-called currency, isn't it? Ayano walks out of the classroom easily enough, and the small sitting area at her right was slowly getting crowded with students.

 _Panty shots._

She's about to be a _pervert_ for information.

Ayano had never felt so disgusted in her entire life.

How was she to go about this? Info-chan obviously had a lot of information about Najimi or anyone else for that matter, but the anonymous girl was certainly making Ayano pay for her services. She sees Miyu and Hinata talking to each other freely, laughing and discussing about the latest plans for Akademi's upcoming school festival. The girls were in a literal circle, so it's near impossible to take even a single shot.

 _'Hey, how many panty shots do you need?'_ Ayano texted her perverted benefactor, getting some canned green tea from the vending machine.

The reply was surprisingly fast: Info-chan had sent her a list. A nice PDF file to her email did the trick.

 **NOTE: THIS INFORMATION WILL BE INSTALLED TO YOUR DEVICE VERY SOON.**  
 **YOUR PATIENCE IS VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.**

PROVIDE STUDENT INFO: 5 PANTY SHOTS  
DAMAGE STUDENT REPUTATION: 5 PANTY SHOTS  
IMPROVE YOUR REPUTATION: 5 PANTY SHOTS  
PROVIDE DARK SECRET: 8 PANTY SHOTS  
SEND STUDENT HOME: 10 PANTY SHOTS  
PROVIDE SPARE UNIFORM: 10 PANTY SHOTS  
PROVIDE WEAPON: 10 PANTY SHOTS  
DELAY POLICE: 20 PANTY SHOTS

*PLEASE NOTE THAT PANTY SHOTS _CANNOT_ BE RECYCLED, _UNLESS_ A STUDENT WEARS _DIFFERENT PANTIES._  
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR GENEROUS PATRONAGE.

Ayano ended up gawking at the list, feeling extremely defeated.

 _'I can't believe this.'_

Info-chan texted back. _'Good luck. :)'_

* * *

This isn't a joke, this isn't a joke, _this isn't a joke._

After-school cleanup duties were done, and every student in Akademi were fixated on their shoe lockers, talking to the person beside them a little. Najimi's right there, looking at a promotional poster on the school's bulletin board, and Ayano sucks in a breath for courage.

But really, what courage?

She's about to take a shot of Najimi's panties.

Slowly, very slowly, Ayano crouches down and crawls as silently as she could, takes out her phone and sets it to silent mode before swiping the screen upwards to take a picture. Exact center of the shot...the button's right there...

Ayano paused.

Polka-dotted panties stared right back at her, covering Najimi's very unflattering behind.

She takes one shot, slowly gets up and much to her horror, the redhaired girl she said hello to that morning stared at her with her mouth open. It's embarrassing, it's so embarrassing, and Ayano feebly raises a finger to her own lips to signal silence.

The girl does the same, but makes a gesture that screams: _'Get up from there - she's not going to look at that forever!'_

Ayano silently stands and walks cautiously to her red-haired friend, following her to the corridors of the girls' and boys' bathrooms. They waited a few seconds before releasing a huge sigh of relief, and Ayano, despite herself, starts laughing.

"W-What colour are they?" Info-chan laughs, not because of the entire exchange, but because the situation was indeed rather hilarious.

Ayano almost choked on her laughter. "Pink and polka-dotted."

* * *

 **A/N:** Patiently waiting for the next update. I can't wait to find out what other things Yanderedev has in store for us.


End file.
